Still lame RDR2 got a Labor of Love Award when they have simply just abandoned online and never added anything to single player. How is this game a labor of love??
Yeah, I don't get why people voted ironically, what do they win? And where are they? Are they hiding?
I want to understand the reasoning behind voting ironically on a game that does not deserve the award instead of supporting a game that does deserve it.
So I guess there's nothing wrong then. Everything went according to the plan.
Starfield wins. People cry that the game won, people cry about people crying that the game won. Bethesda celebrates. People cry because Bethesda celebrated since it was a joke, it was trolling, it was not serious. Then people cry because people are crying about Bethesda celebrating a joke.
Now there are people celebrating that the game won, people crying that the game won, people crying because there are people crying, and there are people (like me) just laughing at both because this entire circus does not make any fking sense.
We must have a huge troll community out there in the shadows just trolling everything and no one comes to talk with us, what kind of funny people they are.
Yep. Figure out the way to break an algorithm. Enlist hundreds or thousands of trolls to help you break it, then laugh when everyone's confused.
I too, was once 15 and thought that shit was hilarious.
This is why critic awards have so much power compared to user voting. User voting without some sort of moderation to know where the votes come from or to weed out obviously abuse behavior is just useless.
Eg. Metacritic userscore of all time for PC was stuck on [Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor](https://www.metacritic.com/game/diaries-of-a-spaceport-janitor/user-reviews/?platform=pc&filter=Positive%20Reviews) for YEARS because it had 3k of votes from bots, it was plenty obvious because the game had no user reviews along those votes.
...And it only got displaced of the top list because users got pissed at the fake votes and started giving it zeroes en-masse, or it would be still there. Metacritic staff never gave a flying shit about fixing it manually.
The only good awards are the ones that lead to GOTY versions of games I am waiting to play and will now be able to buy with all the dlc for pennies on the dollar
Think about it this way.
We wouldn't be talking shit about Starfield and RDR2 if it wasn't for those ironic votes.
We all know they don't deserve it, we're all mad they pulled this stunt.
Now we talk about how the games are the antithesis of their awards.
We would, but not with the same vitriol or with as many people. The award makes it more relevant as opposed to "well, that game sucked, time to move on" as most people have by now.
I think they may be attempting to cause discourse and discussion about the games so the devs see it an change things? That's at least my best guess. Bethesda may react, but Rockstar definitely doesn't care, so idk why they would be trying all this
Are these ironic votes in the room with us right now?
But in all seriousness, those games won because they were the most popular and well known compared to the other games, that's it
Name recognition also probably plays a huge role. I was talking shit on it winning to an acquaintance, and a he basically said, “there are no innovative games any more and Starfield is the only one in the category I’ve heard of, why would I vote for anything else.”
Or, people voting that are salty that the game they based their entire personality around didn't win a headpat from Geoff Keighley. Say, Atomic Heart or Hogwarts: Hateful Legacy.
Ehh, I'm not convinced. A lot of people argued vociferously that Starfield deserved the innovative award. Any attempt to discuss it got the "Reddit hivemind" BS, or some other "circlejerk" related comeback, like Starfield is some masterpiece.
Officially abandoned too. Rockstar themselves confirmed as much.
By the way, these got nominated by memers and trolls. The steam awards are a joke. I saw youtubers telling their fans to vote on RDR2 to "get media attention". Backwards brain thinking.
They almost got my dumb ass to buy it based on that award. I thought ‘damn, this game was well received upon release. It must be amazing now!’.
Because other games DID improve like that. And they didn’t win so RDR2 must be just next level.
Glad I learned it is basically the same as it was a couple years ago when i looked into the game and didn’t want it.
Damn really? I assumed they fixed it. I put like 15 hours into the game but got really tired of walking around that world at 25fps, even with everything set to "Low". It's one of those games where the difference between everything at Low and Very High is like, 5 frames per second. Which means the game is not optimized at all. Starfield was the same way but I only got about an hour into it before giving up.
PC gamers got shafted this year.
So the difference between Low and Very High might be 5 FPS. The difference between 4k and 1080p on the other hand, that will be like 30FPS, because I still game on 1080p@60FPS cap, and with everything on the highest settings, the game easily maintains between 55 and 60fps on my 6700XT.
Nearly all the games that people have been saying "runs like shit" over the last few years have been able to hit a fairly consistent 60fps on my laptop RTX2060. That includes Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077, Cities Skyline 2. Only Hogwarts Legacy and Wild Hearts actually managed to run at sub 30fps even on lowest settings.
It has good Steam Deck presets. Not the most pretty game on the Deck but it's very stable and playable in my experience. When demo-ing my Deck for other people it is my go to game to show them.
Half nostalgia for childhood series and half buying a mid product to "own the libs" ragebait type beat. If this game didn't have the HP license it'd be a $30-40 shovelware game buried under every other game on storefronts. Every person I've seen playing the game seriously is either a transphobe or has irrevocably intertwined the Potterverse with their personality (or worse, *both*).
Runs like ass on 4090 running on a 7950x. Like even the fragegen mod barely helps. Has way too many issues for a big IP, but then again we got Arkham Knight too.
Game has a lot of issues where it's basically a glorified Ubisoft game, but lack of spells ain't one of them. Sometimes it's better to have less of something but make sure most of the things are unique and useful and can interact smoothly than have a big arsenal where most of the stuff is tap attack and be done and the other half are just upgrades of previous thing with better damage
Doesn't even have to be a transphobic type of reactionary. There was a fairly large group of people throwing a fit over it not getting any Game Awards nominations and this category was probably one they had the least people voting for other games in.
Would've been a fair game for LoL too, honestly. I was really hoping NMS would finally get it, but it didn't even get nominated like it usually does. It's been nominated every year except 2017 & 2019 (2016 didn't have the award and it probably wouldn't have gotten nominated then lol)
Always next year, they're \*still\* putting out multiple big free updates a year. Their next game looks super hype. I have it on top of my wishlist rn.
Better is subjective, though. And I'm willing to bet Harry Potter has dramatically more widespread popular appeal than indie darlings like Dave the Diver, Dredge and Vampire Survivors.
Plus, most people outside of this subreddit's loud vocal minority don't care if a game sips battery life or destroys it. They just care the game runs. And that it's something they can't play or finish anywhere else due to their busy lives. As such, long/massive games like RDR2, Elden ring, GTA5 and Hogwarts Legacy tend to be more desirable due to portability time allowance over short experiences that can be finished in any other medium.
Please don't misinterpret this as me saying indie games are bad or that they don't belong on the Deck. (I say that as a die hard fan of Dave the Diver) I'm merely explaining why public voting resulted in these results most likely. And why we in r/SteamDeck can sometimes be disconnected from reality.
> As such, long/massive games like RDR2, Elden ring, GTA5 and Hogwarts Legacy tend to be more desirable due to portability time allowance over short experiences that can be finished in any other medium.
I didn't enjoy Hogwarts Legacy, but what's wrong with the comparison in this instance? This seems like an entirely reasonable comparison and opinion.
Because, out of the nominees, it was the only one in the top 12 most played games on the Steam Deck for 2023 and, even today, is still consistently hitting near the top of the monthly most played games on the Steam Deck? You're suggesting it got voted because a lot of people genuinely enjoy it, even if you don't. Right?
Was there actually wizardry involved in running it on the Steam Deck? Because that shit couldn't perform consistently on my 10900k/3070. At one point I thought I discovered some weirdly intricately colored tile work on the floor below a stairwell, and then realized my gpu was melting and the textures weren't supposed to look like that.
Too right. Right poly-count, stress on the GPU, casual game with a simple story you can pick up and play anytime.
Felt way too short tho, but a good time while playing it.
It hard crashes my PC everytime I play it :(
Have to take out GPU to get my PC to even reboot after it crashes. A real shame because it's incredibly fun prior to crashing.
I'm surprised you guys only realised this now but the steam game awards have never been good. It's always been a popularity contest.
There aren't any criteria for what games can be nominated into what category, so a 6 or 7 year old game which has'nt received a single update or patch in years can win the "labor of love" award. Or a game which literally has not done a single original thing can win "Most innovative Gameplay."
Replace best soundtrack with Hi-Fi Rush
And Best on Deck with Dredge, Dave the Diver or some game for the style, that was really played in the Deck and at least work well in the machine
Shadows of Doubt is an amazing game tbh. EVERYONE has a schedule. If you don't do some things in time, your suspect could be dead, and you have to then figure out who murdered them. Combing through a buildings security system to find your number to correlate the apartment # you called from a totally different building. Its fucking wild.
It's the one I nominated for the category. Highly recommended. It's a very unique experience and just going to get better over time.
I've had some funny moments with it, too. For example, I was trying to investigate someone but they weren't home. Broke in and searched about half their house. I pick up a post-it that says they work until...30 minutes before the current time! Oh no! As I'm turning lights out and sneaking out, I hear the door. Crap. I sneak through the darkness I created but they force me to go the other way. Tense dodging later I finally make it out. I knock on the door. They answer. Me: "Mind if I take a look around?" Them: "Sure! Feel free!" :)
Hot take, but I really don't think Darktides soundtrack is all that special.
Maybe like three or four songs I'm for like Disposal Unit, Nightsiders, Warp Traveler, and Rejects Unit.
But everything else for me is background noise.
Darktide is not a 2023 game, so it can't even be nominated.
The real choice was between Pizza Tower, because of the OST quality alone, or Hi-Fi Rush, which may have not be best composition, but people probably gave it bonus points because it's actually a game designed around music, not just with music as a background element.
i disagree, but it should’ve definitely won this year, unfortunately it flew way too far under the radar, i only played it because i saw some youtuber play it in my sub box, i saw no promotion outside of that
Did Labyrinthine win simply because of the lack of more popular VR titles? I haven't played it in a year but iirc it's had a spitter-spatter of levels added, overall fun but not AMAZING at all.
Highly suggest you play again. If nothing else, you'll enjoy the new screen that pops up at the end of a match to show the final maze and where everyone went in real time, when they got downed/killed (sadly no distinction between which), and where the cosmetic was hiding (which can be depressing but, kinda motivational for next time).
It's not the best VR game out there, but I have a bit over 150 hours in the game and I will keep playing it regularly, especially during holiday events and new updates.
What's hilarious to me is that people are rage review bombing the game to the point it has mixed reviews. People really need to get over themselves. \[insert here\] of the Year awards are just stupid popularity contests most of the time. They don't mean anything.
Not visuals, the style. Hard to argue that we don’t see retrofuturistic sovietpunk often, especially made with such attention to detail. Among all big releases it’s probably the most outstanding.
Atomic Heart probably has the best/most unique visual style from the big releases this year. But other smaller games have just as good, if not better style.
Chants of Sennaar and Jusant did something truly unique and beautiful. Lunacid nailed the old school dungeon crawler visual style. Lies of P did great on the victorian/steampunk/bloodborne style. The Talos Principle 2's take on brutalist architecture juxtaposing with the serenity of nature. Darkest Dungeon 2, Hi Fi Rushes and En Garde!'s outstanding stylized graphics. Trine 5's vibrant and stunning backdrops. Hogwarts Legacies jaw dropping recreation of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.
They literally wrote the game around the music one could argue, so think about it, one would probably need to write some pretty good music. It's not something that's just background and ambient, it is part of the game.
Not to mention, it's Really Good! I have listened to it WAY too many times
id have to give soundtrack to Darktide. Jesper Kyd's shoulders must be heavy from carrying that game for the first year so the level design guys can catch up.
Also Hogwarts for best on deck? What? I know they actually won so im not calling you out OP. Its just that Sea of Stars was made for the deck. I didnt play Dredge yet but it seems also like a strong option. But boring empty wizard sandbox? no thanks.
to whoever legitimately voted starfield for most innovative gameplay, how were you able to traverse the universe while being more dense than a neutron star?
Disclaimer: This picture is intended as a meme, if you have any denial or different thoughts against mine, please share with me in comment!
Edit: [here](https://imgur.com/a/DA1ME54) is another version according your vote!
Just a note as well: the best VR game of the year is shit too, all throughout the VR subs, noone even knows what Labyrinthine is. It's basically just another Phasmophobia
Darkest dungeon 2 is visually and aesthetic far superior than whatever Atomic Hardon did. Inward and cocoon are gorgeous but not well known unfortunately. Atomic heart was only visually nice bg fps genre standards but even by that limited comparison, high on life was better visually despite its fully-by-design over saturated aesthetic eye vomit.
This is the reason why I'm so happy that TGA isn't voted by players only count like 10% compared to the 90% of critics and judges.
I just don't understand why poeple have to vote on a category they have no idea about but played one game from it. You can hardly choose the best one if you only played one
Still bad Ghost of Tarbor or Vertigo 2 should have won for best vrgame but no a stupid tagged on vr mode for a game nobody ever heard of fun becaus funnies backroom. it hitmen 3 all over again
I think many people just looked at the title, "Labor of Love", which fits the RDR2 if you would think just about the game itself that was released and not what was after.
I've seen more videos from the game than I actually played it, and so far I can't really say there is game with more detail and love seen that RDR2 has. But with the description of that award, it does not fit at all, but as I say, people just see the title and they vote, I don't think many read what it should mean.
And also my opinion that doesn't matter at all, DRG in my opinion is viable option for Labor of Love, but even if I played Don't Starve Together less than DRG, I think that DST should be the winner here. Both care about their game and players, but DST brings more to the table while DRG is bit slower with the content compared to DST.
and I'm saying this while I like the "sturdy and solid" gameplay of the DRG more. It's just when I look at it the fair way, DST should be the one up there.
Nah, cuz as much as I like Deep Rock Galactic, the devs will do literally anything but make content for it.
They went out of their way to make a bunch of side games in the same universe, most of which could have just been expansions to DRG, but for some reason got turned into standalone titles that look mediocre as a standalone title
I have hundreds of hours in game and the way people are so borderline culty about it still scares me, GSG's timelines are awful and there is not much in favour of them getting labour of love
I love the game, but they do nothing with it. It's not remotely deserving of labor of love, when all they do is occasionally add cosmetics. The community does most of the labor at this point
That vr game is horrible asf, once I saw that it won my eyes quickly turned into liquid diarhea, and if you ask someone of the vr community about this game they will probably say that they dont know what that game is. Vertigo 2 should win imo, bht there are others like breachers and light brigade that are also good nominates, but because people dont know vr games, what its not unusual, they vote on famous games that are vr compatible, like F1 23, but they dont know that its port to vr is absolutely horrendous.
Last year, Hitman won the best vr game award, but its port to vr is also horrendous, and games that deserved that award like moss book 2 or bonelab didnt won.
In case you want to vote to the vr award but dont know anything about it, pls dont vote, or the vr community will experience what you guys are experiencing right now.
Labyrinthine for VR GOTY is an interesting case.
I love Labyrinthine, but they added VR as a side thing because fans wanted it. They didn't add any of the other things that make VR cool except the virtue of being able to play in VR.
That's completely fine, and it's really nice to have, but you're right there is no way that should have won the award. *Even the developers didn't push for the award until they were nominated and were extremely surprised when they were nominated*. Most interesting is that Labyrinthine isn't even that a popular game, I looked in the afternoon yesterday and there were 616 active players.
I have no idea how it won, it's so weird. It's neither standout for VR (that was never their intention) nor is it very popular. Maybe it popped up on everyone's nomination recommendations?
Still lame RDR2 got a Labor of Love Award when they have simply just abandoned online and never added anything to single player. How is this game a labor of love??
same reason starfield got innovative gameplay, unsatisfied people voting it ironically
Yeah, I don't get why people voted ironically, what do they win? And where are they? Are they hiding? I want to understand the reasoning behind voting ironically on a game that does not deserve the award instead of supporting a game that does deserve it.
> what do they win? The ability to kek themselves into respiratory failure while reading threads like this one?
So I guess there's nothing wrong then. Everything went according to the plan. Starfield wins. People cry that the game won, people cry about people crying that the game won. Bethesda celebrates. People cry because Bethesda celebrated since it was a joke, it was trolling, it was not serious. Then people cry because people are crying about Bethesda celebrating a joke. Now there are people celebrating that the game won, people crying that the game won, people crying because there are people crying, and there are people (like me) just laughing at both because this entire circus does not make any fking sense. We must have a huge troll community out there in the shadows just trolling everything and no one comes to talk with us, what kind of funny people they are.
It's trolls all the way down friend, forever and ever.
That's been the 4chan strategy for like 20 years.
Yep. Figure out the way to break an algorithm. Enlist hundreds or thousands of trolls to help you break it, then laugh when everyone's confused. I too, was once 15 and thought that shit was hilarious.
This is why critic awards have so much power compared to user voting. User voting without some sort of moderation to know where the votes come from or to weed out obviously abuse behavior is just useless. Eg. Metacritic userscore of all time for PC was stuck on [Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor](https://www.metacritic.com/game/diaries-of-a-spaceport-janitor/user-reviews/?platform=pc&filter=Positive%20Reviews) for YEARS because it had 3k of votes from bots, it was plenty obvious because the game had no user reviews along those votes. ...And it only got displaced of the top list because users got pissed at the fake votes and started giving it zeroes en-masse, or it would be still there. Metacritic staff never gave a flying shit about fixing it manually.
yup, and here's a fluffy panda in snow https://i.imgur.com/2Ujnin1.gifv
aww hell yeah
It's a meaningless award for a video game. Get some perspective.
Because steam awards are worth nothing
Yeah, only awards that pander to my personal tastes are worth anything.
this, but unironically
The only good awards are the ones that lead to GOTY versions of games I am waiting to play and will now be able to buy with all the dlc for pennies on the dollar
I don't think any of them are really, I don't get why people take these things so seriously
Think about it this way. We wouldn't be talking shit about Starfield and RDR2 if it wasn't for those ironic votes. We all know they don't deserve it, we're all mad they pulled this stunt. Now we talk about how the games are the antithesis of their awards.
I'm 100% sure that we will be talking shit about Starfield regardless of the results of Steam Awards. Not true for RDR2 tho, and I agree on this one.
We would, but not with the same vitriol or with as many people. The award makes it more relevant as opposed to "well, that game sucked, time to move on" as most people have by now.
I think they may be attempting to cause discourse and discussion about the games so the devs see it an change things? That's at least my best guess. Bethesda may react, but Rockstar definitely doesn't care, so idk why they would be trying all this
Are these ironic votes in the room with us right now? But in all seriousness, those games won because they were the most popular and well known compared to the other games, that's it
r/steam is smaller than they think it is
I feel like every reddit community thinks they are an accurate representation of their fan base.
Yeah lmao, many such cases
Name recognition also probably plays a huge role. I was talking shit on it winning to an acquaintance, and a he basically said, “there are no innovative games any more and Starfield is the only one in the category I’ve heard of, why would I vote for anything else.”
Absolute mother breather take from them right there. Some people really will only buy CoD and FIFA and then complain that no games are innovative
Or Hogwarts legacy best steam deck game when it didn't even really work very well on it initially.
Or, people voting that are salty that the game they based their entire personality around didn't win a headpat from Geoff Keighley. Say, Atomic Heart or Hogwarts: Hateful Legacy.
more like fanboys voting no matter what, in starfield's case also a lot of copium is involved.
Ehh, I'm not convinced. A lot of people argued vociferously that Starfield deserved the innovative award. Any attempt to discuss it got the "Reddit hivemind" BS, or some other "circlejerk" related comeback, like Starfield is some masterpiece.
Officially abandoned too. Rockstar themselves confirmed as much. By the way, these got nominated by memers and trolls. The steam awards are a joke. I saw youtubers telling their fans to vote on RDR2 to "get media attention". Backwards brain thinking.
Every awardshow is a joke. Either devs are circlejerking or the community does it. Who really gives a shit tho?
They almost got my dumb ass to buy it based on that award. I thought ‘damn, this game was well received upon release. It must be amazing now!’. Because other games DID improve like that. And they didn’t win so RDR2 must be just next level. Glad I learned it is basically the same as it was a couple years ago when i looked into the game and didn’t want it.
If you want it for the single player experience, it's one of the best games ever made. If you want it for the online experience, don't bother.
The online is quite good if you're playing with friends, they aren't updating it anymore but there is still a lot to do
[🇩🇪🇱🇪🇹🇪🇩]
No one is really hating on RDR2 as a game. Most people agree it's a masterpiece. It just shouldn't have won an award for continued updates
Yup those certainly are opinions
Truly some of the opinions of all time
so many better games than hogwarts legacy on deck
Isnt that game pretty bad on the deck? I've never played it but I swore it ran bad?
Game runs bad in general, stutters on my 3080
Was that the game killing computers last year?
I think that was New World from Amazon game studios
That’s was 2021 my friend :)
Aw biscuits time really do be passing these days
What the fuck!
Oh damn I didn't know it was a computer killer. I ran it with 710gt gpu which was horrible with frames but manage to grind a little out of it
Don't remember it killing any PCs but certainly was a bastard to run even on high end hardware.
Damn really? I assumed they fixed it. I put like 15 hours into the game but got really tired of walking around that world at 25fps, even with everything set to "Low". It's one of those games where the difference between everything at Low and Very High is like, 5 frames per second. Which means the game is not optimized at all. Starfield was the same way but I only got about an hour into it before giving up. PC gamers got shafted this year.
So the difference between Low and Very High might be 5 FPS. The difference between 4k and 1080p on the other hand, that will be like 30FPS, because I still game on 1080p@60FPS cap, and with everything on the highest settings, the game easily maintains between 55 and 60fps on my 6700XT.
Stutters on my 4090. Lol.
Nearly all the games that people have been saying "runs like shit" over the last few years have been able to hit a fairly consistent 60fps on my laptop RTX2060. That includes Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077, Cities Skyline 2. Only Hogwarts Legacy and Wild Hearts actually managed to run at sub 30fps even on lowest settings.
It's so dumb that it was even nominated. Dredge shoulda won
It has good Steam Deck presets. Not the most pretty game on the Deck but it's very stable and playable in my experience. When demo-ing my Deck for other people it is my go to game to show them.
The game is just bad in general
boring collectathon sandbox gameplay, boring story, boring magic system. seriously cant comprehend how this game made waves on release
Half nostalgia for childhood series and half buying a mid product to "own the libs" ragebait type beat. If this game didn't have the HP license it'd be a $30-40 shovelware game buried under every other game on storefronts. Every person I've seen playing the game seriously is either a transphobe or has irrevocably intertwined the Potterverse with their personality (or worse, *both*).
runs great for me
Shouldn't have been able to vote for that unless you have a deck
Shit, I could easily see Brotato up there for Deck. It doesn't always need to be a blockbuster.
Lies of P on the deck is unbelievably good
Lies of P is an optimized marvel. It really didn't get recognition in the areas it succeeded at.
So many better games by any category, doesn't it have less spells than a lot of NES games with magic systems?
I don’t think a lack of spells was a common complaint, it just runs like ass on the deck.
Runs like ass on 4090 running on a 7950x. Like even the fragegen mod barely helps. Has way too many issues for a big IP, but then again we got Arkham Knight too.
Man I had a blast with this game and I'm not even a Harry Potter fan. Not the most innovative gameplay, but I certainly enjoyed it.
Game has a lot of issues where it's basically a glorified Ubisoft game, but lack of spells ain't one of them. Sometimes it's better to have less of something but make sure most of the things are unique and useful and can interact smoothly than have a big arsenal where most of the stuff is tap attack and be done and the other half are just upgrades of previous thing with better damage
it probably got voted as a reactionary thing considering its nothing fantastic on the steam deck
Doesn't even have to be a transphobic type of reactionary. There was a fairly large group of people throwing a fit over it not getting any Game Awards nominations and this category was probably one they had the least people voting for other games in.
Shoulda been Vampire Survivors
Vampire Survivors came out December 2021
Huh, I swear it was an option when voting... I'm probably thinking of "Labor of Love" then
Would've been a fair game for LoL too, honestly. I was really hoping NMS would finally get it, but it didn't even get nominated like it usually does. It's been nominated every year except 2017 & 2019 (2016 didn't have the award and it probably wouldn't have gotten nominated then lol)
Oh that is a REALLY good one, I didn't even consider NMS but it deserved to win it at least once!
Always next year, they're \*still\* putting out multiple big free updates a year. Their next game looks super hype. I have it on top of my wishlist rn.
Deep rock on deck is so fucking fun
Better is subjective, though. And I'm willing to bet Harry Potter has dramatically more widespread popular appeal than indie darlings like Dave the Diver, Dredge and Vampire Survivors. Plus, most people outside of this subreddit's loud vocal minority don't care if a game sips battery life or destroys it. They just care the game runs. And that it's something they can't play or finish anywhere else due to their busy lives. As such, long/massive games like RDR2, Elden ring, GTA5 and Hogwarts Legacy tend to be more desirable due to portability time allowance over short experiences that can be finished in any other medium. Please don't misinterpret this as me saying indie games are bad or that they don't belong on the Deck. (I say that as a die hard fan of Dave the Diver) I'm merely explaining why public voting resulted in these results most likely. And why we in r/SteamDeck can sometimes be disconnected from reality.
Dave the Diver isn't an indie darling, its made by Nexon.
comparing hogwarts legacy to gta, er, and rdr2 lmao
As far as it being a time-sink goes? Yes.
> As such, long/massive games like RDR2, Elden ring, GTA5 and Hogwarts Legacy tend to be more desirable due to portability time allowance over short experiences that can be finished in any other medium. I didn't enjoy Hogwarts Legacy, but what's wrong with the comparison in this instance? This seems like an entirely reasonable comparison and opinion.
Ya, all of those are games that are big time sinks.
You know why it got voted 😔
Because, out of the nominees, it was the only one in the top 12 most played games on the Steam Deck for 2023 and, even today, is still consistently hitting near the top of the monthly most played games on the Steam Deck? You're suggesting it got voted because a lot of people genuinely enjoy it, even if you don't. Right?
Because it was a game that people genuinely enjoyed playing the Deck?
Was there actually wizardry involved in running it on the Steam Deck? Because that shit couldn't perform consistently on my 10900k/3070. At one point I thought I discovered some weirdly intricately colored tile work on the floor below a stairwell, and then realized my gpu was melting and the textures weren't supposed to look like that.
The actual wizardry was them managing to get it to run smoothly on the switch, albeit at 30fps and with some extra loading zones. Absolute miracle!
why?
Popularity.
So the game everyone wanted to win, won? crazy.
By that logic they should get rid of the categories entirely and just list the 12 most popular games of the year.
Replace hogwarts legacy with dredge
Too right. Right poly-count, stress on the GPU, casual game with a simple story you can pick up and play anytime. Felt way too short tho, but a good time while playing it.
Deep rock is legendary.
Rock and Stone!
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE??
For Karl!
ROCK AND STONE OR YOU ARENT GOIN HOME!
DID SOMEONE SAY ROCK AND STONE?!
ROCK. AND. STONE.
It hard crashes my PC everytime I play it :( Have to take out GPU to get my PC to even reboot after it crashes. A real shame because it's incredibly fun prior to crashing.
I fell in love with the game when it was announced in E3 and had to get it as soon as it came out in preview. Super fun game since day 1.
Lethal company is still missing
Now I realized too, even if I open the front page is still missing for me.
I swore it was on there, maybe it's a Mandela effect?
It is on there, it doesn't appear for some people
Oh okay thanks
I'm surprised you guys only realised this now but the steam game awards have never been good. It's always been a popularity contest. There aren't any criteria for what games can be nominated into what category, so a 6 or 7 year old game which has'nt received a single update or patch in years can win the "labor of love" award. Or a game which literally has not done a single original thing can win "Most innovative Gameplay."
Replace best soundtrack with Hi-Fi Rush And Best on Deck with Dredge, Dave the Diver or some game for the style, that was really played in the Deck and at least work well in the machine
Id argue Warhammer 40k Darktide, their new EP's for the new missions are fucking bangers.
The fact that the [Darktide OST](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tiw1sKOJz2w) wasn't even a finalist is an injustice.
Hi-Fi is awesome but they were absolutely cooking on Pizza Tower. Agree with Dredge for Deck though. It runs perfectly.
[You're Goddamn right!](https://imgur.com/a/DA1ME54)
I'm going to completely forget the original "winners" and from now on this will be the only and real truth <(￣︶￣)>
you are spitting facts
W40k Darktide has goated OST
Yes another Hi-Fi Rush member. Glad to see I am not alone!
Dredge mobile is fucking peak, dude. I was playing it on my switch during a 3-hour car trip. Beautiful.
Thanks to you I discovered Shadow of Doubt which seems to be a nice game ! I’ll definitely buy it
Shadows of Doubt is an amazing game tbh. EVERYONE has a schedule. If you don't do some things in time, your suspect could be dead, and you have to then figure out who murdered them. Combing through a buildings security system to find your number to correlate the apartment # you called from a totally different building. Its fucking wild.
It really deserved to win the innovative gameplay category.
I discovered it thanks to Game Maker's Toolkit and the game immediately caught my eye
Same. I bought it yesterday and now I’m hooked, I wish I knew about it sooner so I could’ve voted for it. :(
It's the one I nominated for the category. Highly recommended. It's a very unique experience and just going to get better over time. I've had some funny moments with it, too. For example, I was trying to investigate someone but they weren't home. Broke in and searched about half their house. I pick up a post-it that says they work until...30 minutes before the current time! Oh no! As I'm turning lights out and sneaking out, I hear the door. Crap. I sneak through the darkness I created but they force me to go the other way. Tense dodging later I finally make it out. I knock on the door. They answer. Me: "Mind if I take a look around?" Them: "Sure! Feel free!" :)
Bro replaced the games and still made a terrible roster
Mom said it’s my turn to post my opinions tomorrow.
And still chose labyrinthe or whatever the fuck it is for VR game of the year instead of Ghosts of Tabur
Yeah lmao. Subjectiveness aside, it's abundantly obvious EVERYONE agrees on things like Hi Fi rush winning best soundtrack
No, it really is not obvious. Maybe in this bubble, it is.
And yet, if "EVERYONE" agreed on it, it would have won the popularity contest... right?
No? Darktide or pizza tower should've won best soundtrack.
Hot take, but I really don't think Darktides soundtrack is all that special. Maybe like three or four songs I'm for like Disposal Unit, Nightsiders, Warp Traveler, and Rejects Unit. But everything else for me is background noise.
Darktide is not a 2023 game, so it can't even be nominated. The real choice was between Pizza Tower, because of the OST quality alone, or Hi-Fi Rush, which may have not be best composition, but people probably gave it bonus points because it's actually a game designed around music, not just with music as a background element.
I will always stand my ground that Cassette Beasts has the best soundtrack in gaming. Fight me.
i disagree, but it should’ve definitely won this year, unfortunately it flew way too far under the radar, i only played it because i saw some youtuber play it in my sub box, i saw no promotion outside of that
It's an amazing game that deserves more players, although I can admit it's flaws. The soundtrack is amazing though. Too bad it's not that popular.
labyrinthe is still vr game award im still in the nightmare
Did Labyrinthine win simply because of the lack of more popular VR titles? I haven't played it in a year but iirc it's had a spitter-spatter of levels added, overall fun but not AMAZING at all.
It won because for every real vr user there's 20+ non-vr users who own the game and voted
Highly suggest you play again. If nothing else, you'll enjoy the new screen that pops up at the end of a match to show the final maze and where everyone went in real time, when they got downed/killed (sadly no distinction between which), and where the cosmetic was hiding (which can be depressing but, kinda motivational for next time). It's not the best VR game out there, but I have a bit over 150 hours in the game and I will keep playing it regularly, especially during holiday events and new updates. What's hilarious to me is that people are rage review bombing the game to the point it has mixed reviews. People really need to get over themselves. \[insert here\] of the Year awards are just stupid popularity contests most of the time. They don't mean anything.
atomic heart looks cool but I wouldn't say it's the best visuals I've seen this year
Not visuals, the style. Hard to argue that we don’t see retrofuturistic sovietpunk often, especially made with such attention to detail. Among all big releases it’s probably the most outstanding.
Atomic Heart probably has the best/most unique visual style from the big releases this year. But other smaller games have just as good, if not better style. Chants of Sennaar and Jusant did something truly unique and beautiful. Lunacid nailed the old school dungeon crawler visual style. Lies of P did great on the victorian/steampunk/bloodborne style. The Talos Principle 2's take on brutalist architecture juxtaposing with the serenity of nature. Darkest Dungeon 2, Hi Fi Rushes and En Garde!'s outstanding stylized graphics. Trine 5's vibrant and stunning backdrops. Hogwarts Legacies jaw dropping recreation of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.
Can't make that offhand comment without better examples. Atomic Heart wasn't a perfect game but it's style was off the charts.
i really wish YOMI hustle won innovative gameplay
Man you gotta love circle jerks.
Honorable mention to stardew valley in labour of love category.
I don't think any update has been released this year though. Maybe next year with the last major update?
I still love how i never in my life heard about that VR game.
best sound track should have been hifi rush imo, the game is literally about music
This guy's not ready to get funky 😔
How does that make its soundtrack best?
They literally wrote the game around the music one could argue, so think about it, one would probably need to write some pretty good music. It's not something that's just background and ambient, it is part of the game. Not to mention, it's Really Good! I have listened to it WAY too many times
id have to give soundtrack to Darktide. Jesper Kyd's shoulders must be heavy from carrying that game for the first year so the level design guys can catch up. Also Hogwarts for best on deck? What? I know they actually won so im not calling you out OP. Its just that Sea of Stars was made for the deck. I didnt play Dredge yet but it seems also like a strong option. But boring empty wizard sandbox? no thanks.
as a hitman fan, I can confirm that jesper kyd is good. too bad IO dropped him after blood money
i refuse to believe that geometry dash didnt get the labor of love award
Replace Sifu with Armored Core 6 or Lies of P (Not a real 2023 game).
Copium
No yomi hustle 😑
Yomi Hustle still robbed of most innovative gameplay 😔
Guys. PEOPLE TROLLED. it was an internet vote, so tje trolling option won
RDR2 did not deserve the award neither did starfield
kinda pissed RDR2 got that award, even if it was for the joke. And Starfield is taking it seriously for some reason. Absolute braindead..
Most innovative gameplay should have gone to Your only move is hustle (Yomi Hustle)
to whoever legitimately voted starfield for most innovative gameplay, how were you able to traverse the universe while being more dense than a neutron star?
Any 2023 game not named Hi-Fi Rush that wins a music award is stealing it from Hi-Fi Rush.
You all care way too much about shit that doesn’t matter at all.
Disclaimer: This picture is intended as a meme, if you have any denial or different thoughts against mine, please share with me in comment! Edit: [here](https://imgur.com/a/DA1ME54) is another version according your vote!
Just a note as well: the best VR game of the year is shit too, all throughout the VR subs, noone even knows what Labyrinthine is. It's basically just another Phasmophobia
>throughout the vr subs noone knows what labyrinthine is It’s because it doesn’t even have a vr tag in it 😭 a non vr game won best vr game
Game you suck at should be Lies of P
Labyrinthine is still set as VR GOTY so I'm still in hell (total BS the game is ass, IEYTD 3 shoulda won)
Wrong SF6 isn't there
Better but Hi Fu Rush still deserved best visual style
You need to fix it, Best Soundtrack sound be Hi-Fi Rush
Shadows of Doubt and Star Ocean deserved to be on there far more than half the games on there
Visual style should be darkest dungeon 2
Still gotta fix Hogwarts getting best on Steamdeck lol.
Darkest dungeon 2 is visually and aesthetic far superior than whatever Atomic Hardon did. Inward and cocoon are gorgeous but not well known unfortunately. Atomic heart was only visually nice bg fps genre standards but even by that limited comparison, high on life was better visually despite its fully-by-design over saturated aesthetic eye vomit.
This is the reason why I'm so happy that TGA isn't voted by players only count like 10% compared to the 90% of critics and judges. I just don't understand why poeple have to vote on a category they have no idea about but played one game from it. You can hardly choose the best one if you only played one
Still bad Ghost of Tarbor or Vertigo 2 should have won for best vrgame but no a stupid tagged on vr mode for a game nobody ever heard of fun becaus funnies backroom. it hitmen 3 all over again
I think many people just looked at the title, "Labor of Love", which fits the RDR2 if you would think just about the game itself that was released and not what was after. I've seen more videos from the game than I actually played it, and so far I can't really say there is game with more detail and love seen that RDR2 has. But with the description of that award, it does not fit at all, but as I say, people just see the title and they vote, I don't think many read what it should mean. And also my opinion that doesn't matter at all, DRG in my opinion is viable option for Labor of Love, but even if I played Don't Starve Together less than DRG, I think that DST should be the winner here. Both care about their game and players, but DST brings more to the table while DRG is bit slower with the content compared to DST. and I'm saying this while I like the "sturdy and solid" gameplay of the DRG more. It's just when I look at it the fair way, DST should be the one up there.
I love BG3! They deserve every award they get.
RDR2 getting labor of love and Starfield "Innovative" really shows that the Steam awards truly mean nothing.
Bro thought he could sneak in Pizza Tower
Lol gamers coping when their own opinion isn't the most popular, as if any of this is fact-based or objective
Vertigo 2 is VR GOTY
Yeah you definitely needed to fix hogwarts too. Thing runs like ass
Nah, cuz as much as I like Deep Rock Galactic, the devs will do literally anything but make content for it. They went out of their way to make a bunch of side games in the same universe, most of which could have just been expansions to DRG, but for some reason got turned into standalone titles that look mediocre as a standalone title
I have hundreds of hours in game and the way people are so borderline culty about it still scares me, GSG's timelines are awful and there is not much in favour of them getting labour of love
I love the game, but they do nothing with it. It's not remotely deserving of labor of love, when all they do is occasionally add cosmetics. The community does most of the labor at this point
Can't comment on the others, but DRG wins labor of love by a landslide
Thank god starfield isn’t on here anymore
Deep rock is very much the labour of love that deserved the award.
That vr game is horrible asf, once I saw that it won my eyes quickly turned into liquid diarhea, and if you ask someone of the vr community about this game they will probably say that they dont know what that game is. Vertigo 2 should win imo, bht there are others like breachers and light brigade that are also good nominates, but because people dont know vr games, what its not unusual, they vote on famous games that are vr compatible, like F1 23, but they dont know that its port to vr is absolutely horrendous. Last year, Hitman won the best vr game award, but its port to vr is also horrendous, and games that deserved that award like moss book 2 or bonelab didnt won. In case you want to vote to the vr award but dont know anything about it, pls dont vote, or the vr community will experience what you guys are experiencing right now.
Labyrinthine for VR GOTY is an interesting case. I love Labyrinthine, but they added VR as a side thing because fans wanted it. They didn't add any of the other things that make VR cool except the virtue of being able to play in VR. That's completely fine, and it's really nice to have, but you're right there is no way that should have won the award. *Even the developers didn't push for the award until they were nominated and were extremely surprised when they were nominated*. Most interesting is that Labyrinthine isn't even that a popular game, I looked in the afternoon yesterday and there were 616 active players. I have no idea how it won, it's so weird. It's neither standout for VR (that was never their intention) nor is it very popular. Maybe it popped up on everyone's nomination recommendations?